Welcome to "Close Guantánamo"

Leaving the Dark Side? Emptying Guantánamo and the CIA Torture Report

Please watch "Close Guantánamo" co-founders Tom Wilner and Andy Worthington in “Leaving the Dark Side? Emptying Guantánamo and the CIA Torture Report,” a panel discussion -- also featuring Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantánamo, and moderated by Peter Bergen -- at New America in Washington D.C. on January 12, the day after the 13th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay. And see Andy speaking outside the White House on the anniversary here.

We also recommend a new letter to President Obama from Senators Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin calling for urgent action to release the 52 men still held who have been approved for release, a position strongly endorsed by the "Close Guantánamo" campaign.

To ask President Obama to continue releasing prisoners from Guantánamo, call the White House on 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 or submit a comment online.

You can also call the Department of Defense and ask Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to issue certifications for other cleared prisoners, as required by law: 703-571-3343.

Please also read about the "petty and nasty" decision by Guantánamo's commander to ban lawyers from bringing food to share with their clients, which was announced in May 2015. To call for the ban to be dropped, call U.S. Southern Command on 305-437-1244 and ask for prisoners -- "detainees," as the authorities describe them -- to continue to have food brought to them by their attorneys.

We Stand With Shaker: Official Campaign Video

Please also watch the promotional video for We Stand With Shaker, the new campaign, launched in London on November 24, 2014, calling for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who has long been cleared for release, and whose ongoing imprisonment is completely unacceptable (also on Facebook and Twitter). Please read our article about the launch of the campaign here. The video features "Close Guantánamo" co-founder Andy Worthington's band The Four Fathers playing "Song for Shaker Aamer," the campaign song he wrote. Please also see the campaign's video for Human Rights Day here, and read the New York Times op-ed -- with Andy's commentary -- by the four British MPs who visited Washington D.C. to call for Shaker's release in May 2015.

Please also visit the "GTMO Clock," which we launched in 2013 to count how many days it is since President Obama promised, in a major speech on May 23, 2013, to resume releasing prisoners from Guantánamo, and how many have been freed. The clock reached the 700-day mark on April 22, 2015, and for the second anniversary of the promise we issued an open letter to President Obama and Ashton Carter calling for renewed action. On July 31, we marked 800 days of the Gitmo Clock and renewed calls for prisoners to be released.

The prison at Guantánamo Bay is an abominable experiment in indefinite detention, which poisons America's claim to be a nation that believes in justice, and the detention of 52 prisoners cleared for release, who are held because it is politically inconvenient to release them, is a disgrace. 44 of these men have long been cleared for release by a presidential task force, and eight others were added to the list of cleared prisoners between January 2014 and June 2015, after undergoing a new review process, the Detainee Review Boards, which began in 2013.

We are a group of lawyers, journalists, retired military personnel and concerned citizens seeking to close the "war on terror" prison at Guantánamo Bay, where 116 men are still held, even though 52 of them have been cleared for release. In 2012, we published an exclusive report identifying 40 prisoners first cleared for release under President Bush, who were still held at the time, and we also produced a major report telling the stories of 56 of the cleared prisoners whose names were included on a list released by the Justice Department in a court case in September 2012.

As President Obama's second and final term in office becomes entrenched, his legacy is being written, and he needs to make good the promise to close Guantánamo that he made six years ago, on his second day in office in January 2009. While the prison remains open, it continues to undermine America's values and national security.

Join us now to help end this injustice and restore the rule of law. We call on President Obama to honor the principled and pragmatic commitment he made to close Guantánamo. Your voice matters.

Thank you for your commitment and support, and thank you for your interest in bringing this dark chapter in modern U.S. history to an end. Please see our mission statement for a more detailed analysis of why Guantánamo must be closed, and to see the list of prominent individuals and organizations who have signed it.